Who invented Lotto? The history of the game from Genoa to Totalizator

Lotto has no single inventor. Numeric lotteries, in which a player picks several numbers from a larger pool, operated in Italian city-states — Genoa and Venice — as early as the 16th century. In Poland, the game was launched by Totalizator Sportowy, a state-owned enterprise established in 1956, and the first draw took place on 27 January 1957 under the name toto-lotek.

Today's Lotto is a direct descendant of that game. The name, presentation, and the way tickets are sold have changed, but the core — drawing six numbers from a pool — has survived nearly seven decades.

Where did the idea of a numeric lottery come from

The question „who invented Lotto” assumes there is one name and one date. There is not. In Genoa, bets originally concerned the results of elections to the city council — residents wagered on which names would be drawn from the urn. When names were replaced with numbers, the formula we recognise today emerged. In Venice, the lottery became a steady source of income for the city treasury.

The name itself comes from the Italian lotto — „fate”, „a share in the drawing”. It entered the Polish language through other European languages, together with the game's formula. When people in Poland looked for a lottery idea in the nineteen-fifties, nothing was invented from scratch: a solution that had worked in Western Europe for centuries was simply adapted.

Totalizator Sportowy — who launched the game in Poland

The Polish author of Lotto is an institution, not a person. Totalizator Sportowy was established in 1956 as a state-owned enterprise running mutual bets and games of chance, with the profits meant to fund sport and physical culture. This model — a state monopoly whose revenue goes to public causes — still applies today.

The first game offered by Totalizator was football betting with predictions of match results. The numeric game joined shortly after and quickly proved more popular: it required no sporting knowledge, and the rule was clear to anyone who could tick a few boxes on a ticket.

Timeline: from toto-lotek to Lotto

Below are the turning points that can be confirmed. Details we cannot document are not guessed.

Year	Event
1956	Establishment of Totalizator Sportowy as a state-owned enterprise running mutual bets and games of chance.
27 January 1957	First draw of the numeric game known as toto-lotek. The date recognised as the beginning of Polish Lotto.
60s and 70s	Expansion of the network of collection points; the game operates under the name Duży Lotek alongside other variants.
90s	Draws move to commercial television and gain a studio production.
1994–2000	Totalizator expands its offer with further numeric games: Multi Multi, Mini Lotto and others. Lotto stops being the only game and becomes the flagship one.
2017	Amendment to the Gambling Act organises the market and confirms the state monopoly on numeric games.
2018	Launch of legal ticket sales over the internet through Totalizator Sportowy's official website.

Current results, dates and times of upcoming draws can be found in the Lotto draw archive.

How the name and formula of the game have changed

Toto-lotek, Duży Lotek, Lotto — these are not three different games, but successive names for the same one. The pool of numbers and the way of picking them changed. Today's formula is six numbers from the range 1 to 49, and a top-tier win requires matching all six.

Side variants were added along the way. Lotto Plus is drawn during the same draw as Lotto, but with a separate prize pool. Mini Lotto (5 out of 42), Eurojackpot (5 out of 50 plus 2 out of 12), Multi Multi (20 out of 80) and Kaskada (12 out of 24) have their own pools and schedules. From a historical perspective, one thing matters: the core — six numbers out of forty-nine — has survived several decades almost unchanged.

What are the odds of hitting six

The probability of hitting all six numbers in Lotto is one in 13,983,816 — that is how many combinations of six numbers out of forty-nine there are. The figure comes from combinatorics and does not depend on how many draws took place before or which numbers came up in the past.

Every draw is independent of the previous ones. A number that has not come up for two hundred draws has exactly the same probability in the next draw as any other. No selection method changes this calculation. Frequency tables describe only the past — that is what the Lotto draw statistics do — and they are not a prediction tool.

How much does a bet cost and how much tax will the winner pay

The pricing of bets changed on 18 August 2026. Current rates are published by Totalizator Sportowy on the ticket and in the game rules — it is worth checking them at the source before buying, since historical amounts circulating online are already out of date.

Winnings from numeric games are subject to a flat-rate income tax. Winnings not exceeding PLN 2,280 are exempt from it; above that threshold, the operator withholds the tax at payout, so the winner receives a net amount and does not report it separately in the annual tax return. From 1 January 2026, the rate is 15 procent.

Calculating the take-home amount is made easier by the prize tax calculator. Winnings above the set threshold are collected at a Totalizator office, not at a collection point — a list of locations is available on the where to collect a prize page.

Summary

Lotto has no inventor with a first and last name. It does, however, have a well-documented beginning in Poland: 27 January 1957, the first toto-lotek draw under the banner of Totalizator Sportowy. Everything that happens today — draws several times a week, online sales, six numeric games on offer — is a development of that original idea, not a separate story.

Games of chance are intended solely for adults (18+). Play responsibly and do not treat betting as a way to earn money. If playing stops being entertainment, seek help — free support is offered by the National Centre for Addiction Prevention.